The Oxford English Dictionary has 162 words with first citations from 1980. In that year, the computer world was all abuzz about RISC, coprocessors, and Usenet; foodies smacked their lips over Buffalo wings; comb-overs weren’t fooling anyone; and the inventors of Rubik’s cube and the Walkman cashed in, ka-ching!

The words of 1980:

401(k), n. A 401(k) plan, named after the relevant section of the U. S. tax code, is a retirement plan that allows an employee to invest pre-tax income in an account where it is not taxed until withdrawn after retirement.

air-guitar, n. The term for an imaginary instrument used to mime along with music hits the stage.

aloe vera, n. From the Linnaean taxonomy of the plant from which it is derived, the name for the emollient used in cosmetics and skin care appears.

auto-completion, n. The computing feature used in word processing and other applications makes its debut.

biotech, n. This clipping of biotechnology, which dates to the 1920s, appears.

Buffalo, n.2 Buffalo chicken wings were first served at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York in 1964, but it took a couple of decades for the delicacy to catch on nationwide.

carbo-loading, n. The full carbohydrate loading appears in medical literature as early as 1963, but around 1980 endurance athletes took up the practice and the term, clipping it to just carbo-loading.

cold call, v. The OED records both the verb to cold call and the corresponding noun, meaning “an unsolicited telephonic sales pitch,” from 1980. But the dictionary has cold calling from 1972, so the two base terms are likely somewhat older.

comb-over, n. The name of the men’s hair style that doesn’t fool anyone except the wearer debuts.

coprocessor, n. Beginning in 1980, many computers started coming with a second microprocessor, usually for floating-point mathematical calculations.

Dobsonian, adj. and n. In the 1950s San Francisco-based amateur astronomer John Dobson invented this design for a low-cost telescope that used a Newtonian optical tube assembly and a sturdy, wooden alt-azimuth mount. By 1980 amateur astronomers across the United States were building telescopes based on Dobson’s design.

electronica, n. The new musical style gets a name.

Euro, adj. The adjective, used for just about anything having to do with Europe, gets its start.
… …

ka-ching, n. and int. This echoic term that imitates the sound of cash register is used to imply that money has been made on some transaction. The OED has it from 1980, but the ADS-L email list has antedated ka-ching to at least 1970, and the Harvard Lampoon’s 1969 parody Bored of the Rings uses ching for the same purpose.

Nimby, n. The acronym for not in my back yard starts to be used to describe objections to projects in one’s own neighborhood.

Norplant, n. The brand name for the long-term, subcutaneous method of female contraception appears.

pair-bond, v. The noun from 1940 is verbed. The gerund pair-bonding is found from 1961 and the adjective pair-bonded from 1972.

retronym, n. William Safire used this term in his New York Times language column starting in 1980. Safire claims that it was coined by Frank Mankiewicz of National Public Radio. A retronym is a term created for a long-standing concept because the original term has become ambiguous, often due to technical advances, such as analog clock or broadcast television.

RISC, n. Reduced instruction set computers make their appearance. This type of processor uses a relatively small set of instructions, enabling faster performance.

Rubik’s cube, n. Hungarian designer Erno Rubik invented his puzzle cube in 1974, but it took until 1980 for the worldwide marketing effort to take off.

super-max, n. and adj. The term is something of an oxymoron, but the adjective super-maximum has been around since at least 1917, and applied to the highest security prisons in the United States since at least 1954. By 1980, the term was being clipped to simply super-max.

Usenet, n. The computer communication system got its start at Duke University in 1979 and was named in 1980.

waitron, n. (also waitperson, n.) Waitron combines a genderless form with an implication of waiting tables as a mindless, robotic activity. Waitperson also gets its start in 1980.

Walkman, n. Sony’s portable cassette player hits the market.

[Edited at 2015-10-10 20:30 GMT]

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• The strongest of all warriors are these two - Time and Patience. ― Leo Tolstoy

• In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you. ― Leo Tolstoy

• “Everywhere across whatever sorrows of which our life is woven, some radiant joy will gaily flash past.”
― Nikolai Gogol

• “...nothing could be more pleasant than to live in solitude, enjoy the spectacle of nature, and occasionally read some book... ...” ― Nikolai Gogol

• It is better to have dreamed a thousand dreams that never were than never to have dreamed at all.
― Alexander Pushkin

• “He filled a shelf with a small army of books and read and read; but none of it made sense. .. They were all subject to various cramping limitations: those of the past were outdated, and those of the present were obsessed with the past.” ― Alexander Pushkin

• “Time sometimes flies like a bird, sometimes crawls like a snail; but a man is happiest when he does not even notice whether it passes swiftly or slowly.” ― Ivan Turgenev

• “A childish feeling, I admit, but, when we retire from the conventions of society and draw close to nature, we involuntarily become children: each attribute acquired by experience falls away from the soul, which becomes anew such as it was once and will surely be again.” ― Mikhail Lermontov

• “But does it really help if a person doesn't realize what he lacks, or, if he does, he insists that he doesn't need it at all? That's an illusion, a fantasy. Human nature is stifled by reason, circumstances, and pride. It keeps silent and doesn't make itself known to one's consciousness, all the while silently doing its work of undermining life.”
― Nikolai Chernyshevsky

• “My holy of holies is the human body, health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love, and the most absolute freedom imaginable, freedom from violence and lies, no matter what form the latter two take. Such is the program I would adhere to if I were a major artist.” ― Anton Chekhov

• “A tree is beautiful, but what’s more, it has a right to life; like water, the sun and the stars, it is essential. Life on earth is inconceivable without trees. Forests create climate, climate influences peoples’ character, and so on and so forth. There can be neither civilization nor happiness if forests crash down under the axe, if the climate is harsh and severe, if people are also harsh and severe.... What a terrible future!” ― Anton Chekhov

• “When swept out of its normal channel, life scatters into innumerable streams. It is difficult to foresee which it will take in its treacherous and winding course. Where to-day it flows in shallows, like a rivulet over sandbanks, so shallow that the shoals are visible, to-morrow it will flow richly and fully.”
― Mikhail Sholokhov

[Edited at 2015-10-25 15:18 GMT]

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